It is hardly to be expected that an author whom the public have honored with some degree of applause should not be again a trespasser on their kindness. Yet the author of Marmion must be supposed to feel some anxiety concerning its success, since he is sensible that he hazards, by this second intrusion, any reputation which his first poem may have procured him. The present story turns upon the pri vate adventures of a fictitious character, but is called a Tale of Flodden Field, because the hero's fate is connected with that memorable defeat and the causes which led to it. The design of the author was, if possible, to apprise his readers, at the outset, of the date of his story, and to prepare them for the manners of the age in which it is laid. Any historical narrative, far more an attempt at epic composition, exceeded his plan of a romantic tale; yet he may be permitted to hope, from the popularity of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, that an attempt to paint the manners of the feudal times, upon a broader scale, and in the course of a more interesting story, will not be unacceptable to the public. The poem opens about the commencement of August, and concludes with the defeat of Flodden, 9th September, 1513. ASHESTIEL, 1808. • The edition of 1830 contained the following " Introduction: What I have to say respecting this poem may be briefly told. In the Introduction to the Lay of the Last Minstrel I have mentioned the circumstances, so far as my literary life is concerned, which induced me to resign the active pursuit of an honorable profession for the more precarious resources of literature. My appointment to the Sheriffdom of Selkirk called for a change of residence. I left, therefore, the pleasant cottage I had upon the side of the Esk, for the "pleasanter banks of the Tweed," in order to comply with the law, which requires that the sheriff shall be resident, at least during a certain number of months, within his jurisdiction. We found a delightful retirement, by my becoming the tenant of my intimate friend and cousingerman, Colonel Russel, in his mansion of Ashestiel, which was unoccupied during his absence on military service in India. The house was adequate to our accommodation and the exercise of a limited hospitality. The situation is uncommonly beautiful, by the side of a fine river whose streams are there very favorable for angling, surrounded by the remains of natural woods, and by hills abounding in game. In point of society, according to the heartfelt phrase of Scripture, we dwelt" amongst our own people;" and as the distance from the metropolis was only thirty miles, we were not out of reach of our Edinburgh friends, in which city we spent the terms of the summer and winter sessions of the court, that is, five or six months in the year. An important circumstance had, about the same time, taken place in my life. Hopes had been held out to me from an influential quarter, of a nature to relieve me from the anxiety which I must have otherwise felt, as one upon the precarious tenure of whose own life rested the principal prospects of his family, and especially as one who had neces sarily some dependence upon the favor of the public, which is proverbially capricious; though it is but justice to add that in my own case I have not found it so. Mr. Pitt had expressed a wish to my personal friend, the Right Honorable William Dundas, now Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, that some fitting opportunity should be taken to be of service to me; and as my views and wishes pointed to a future rather than an immediate provision, an opportunity of accomplishing this was soon found. One of the Principal Clerks of Session, as they are called (official persons who occupy an important and responsible situation, and enjoy a considerable income), who had served upwards of thirty years, felt himself, from age and the infirmity of deafness with which it was accompanied, desirous of retiring from his official situation. As the law then stood, such official persons were entitled to bargain with their successors, either for a sum of money, which was usually a considerable one, or for an interest in the emoluments of the office during their life. My predecessor, whose services had been unusually meritorious, stipulated for the emoluments of his office during his life, while I should enjoy the survivorship, on the condition that I discharged the duties of the office in the mean time. Mr. Pitt, however, having died in the interval, his administration was dissolved, and was succeeded by that known by the name of the Fox and Grenville Ministry. My affair was so far completed that my commission lay in the office subscribed by his Majesty; but, from hurry or mistake, the interest of my predecessor was not expressed in it, as had been usual in such cases. Although, therefore, it only required payment of the fees, I could not in honor take out the commission in the present state, since, in the event of my dying before him, the gentleman whom I succeeded must have lost the vested interest which he had stipulated to retain. I had the honor of an interview with Earl Spencer on the subject, and he, in the most handsome manner, gave directions that the commission should issue as originally intended; adding, that the matter having received the royal assent, he regarded only as a claim of justice what he would have willingly done as an act of favor. I never saw Mr. Fox on this or on any other occasion, and never made any application to him, conceiving that in doing so I might have been supposed to express political opinions contrary to those which I had always professed. In his private capacity, there is no man to whom I would have been more proud to owe an obli gation, had I been so distinguished. By this arrangement I obtained the survivorship of an office the emoluments of which were fully adequate to my wishes; and as the law respecting the mode of providing for superannuated officers was, about five or six years after, altered from that which admitted the arrangement of assistant and successor, my colleague very handsomely took the opportunity of the alteration to accept of the retiring annuity provided in such cases, and admitted me to the full benefit of the office. But although the certainty of succeeding to a considerable income, at the time I obtained it, seemed to assure me of a quiet harbor in my old age, I did not escape my share of inconvenience from the contrary tides and currents by which we are so often encountered in our journey through life. Indeed, the publication of my next poetical attempt was prematurely accelerated, from one of those unpleasant accidents which can neither be foreseen nor avoided. I had formed the prudent resolution to endeavor to bestow a little more labor than I had yet done on my productions, and to be in no hurry again to announce myself as a candidate for literary fame. Accordingly, particular passages of a poem which was finally called Marmion were labored with a good deal of care by one by whom much care was seldom bestowed. Whether the work was worth the labor or not, I am no competent judge; but I may be permitted to say that the period of its composition was a very happy one in my life; so much so, that I remember with pleasure, at this moment, some of the spots in which particular passages were composed. It is probably owing to this that the Introductions to the several cantos assumed the form of familiar epistles to my intimate friends, in which I alluded, perhaps more than was necessary or graceful, to my domestic occupations and amusements, - -a loquacity which may be excused by those who remember that I was still young, light-headed, and happy, and that "out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh." The misfortunes of a near relation and friend, which happened at this time, led me to alter my prudent determination, which had been to use great precaution in sending this poem into the world; and made it convenient at least, if not absolutely necessary, to hasten its publication. The publishers of The Lay of the Last Minstrel, emboldened by the success of that poem, willingly offered a thousand pounds for Marmion. The transaction, being no secret, afforded Lord Byron, who was then at general war with all who blacked paper, an apology for including me in his satire entitled English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.1 I never could conceive how an arrangement between an author and his publishers, if satisfactory to the persons concerned, could afford matter of censure to any third party. I had taken no unusual or ungenerous 1 Lockhart quotes the passage, which is as follows: "Next view in state, proud prancing on his roan, The golden-crested haughty Marmion, Now forging scrolls, now foremost in the fight, Not quite a felon, yet but half a knight, The gibbet or the field prepared to grace; A mighty mixture of the great and base. And think'st thou, Scott! by vain conceit perchance, - means of enhancing the value of my merchandise, — I had never higgled a moment about the bargain, but accepted at once what I considered the handsome offer of my publishers. These gentlemen, at least, were not of opinion that they had been taken advantage of in the transaction, which indeed was one of their own framing; on the contrary, the sale of the poem was so far beyond their expectation as to induce them to supply the author's cellars with what is always an acceptable present to a young Scottish housekeeper, namely, a hogshead of excellent claret. The poem was finished in too much haste to allow me an opportunity of softening down, if not removing, some of its most prominent defects. The nature of Marmion's guilt, although similar instances were found, and might be quoted, as existing in feudal times, was nevertheless not sufficiently peculiar to be indicative of the character of the period, forgery being the crime of a commercial rather than a proud and warlike age. This gross defect ought to have been remedied or palliated. Yet I suffered the tree to lie as it had fallen. I remember my friend, Dr. Leyden, then in the East, wrote me a furious remonstrance on the subject. I have, nevertheless, always been of opinion that corrections, however in themselves judicious, have a bad effect—after publication. An author is never so decidedly condemned as on his own confession, and may long find apologists and partisans until he gives up his own cause. I was not, therefore, inclined to afford matter for censure out of my own admissions; and, by good fortune, the novelty of the subject and, if I may say so, some force and vivacity of description, were allowed to atone for many imperfections. Thus the second experiment on the public patience, generally the most perilous, for the public are then most apt to judge with rigor what in the first instance they had received perhaps with imprudent generosity,—was in my case decidedly successful. I had the good fortune to pass this ordeal favorably, and the return of sales before me makes the copies amount to thirty-six thousand printed between 1808 and 1825, besides a considerable sale since that period. I shall here pause upon the subject of Marmion, and, in a few prefatory words to The Lady of the Lake, the last poem of mine which obtained eminent success, I will continue the task which I have imposed on myself respecting the origin of my productions. ABBOTSFORD, April, 1830. INTRODUCTION TO CANTO FIRST. Lockhart states that the Introductions "were not originally intended to be interwoven in any fashion with the romance of Marmion." He adds: "Though the author himself does not allude to, and had perhaps forgotten the circumstance when writing the Introductory Essay of 1830, they were announced by an advertisement early in 1807, as 'Six Epistles from Ettrick Forest,' to be published in a separate volume; and perhaps it might have been better that this first plan had been adhered to. But however that may be, are there any pages among all he ever wrote that one would be more sorry he should not have written? They are among the most delicious portraitures that genius ever painted of itself - buoyant, virtuous, happy genius - exulting in its own energies, yet possessed and mastered by a clear, calm, modest mind, and happy only in diffusing happiness around it." WILLIAM STEWART ROSE (1775-1843), to whom this Introduction is addressed, was a poet of some reputation in his day, but now chiefly known by his translation of Ariosto (1823-31). Among his other works were free translations of the old romances of Amadis de Gaul (1803) and Partenopex de Blois (1807), referred to by Scott below (lines 310 fol.). See his memoir by Townsend, prefixed to Bohn's ed. of the Ariosto; Lockhart's Life of Scott, chaps. xvi., xlix., and lix.; Blackwood's Mag. for June, 1824; and C. R. Leslie's Autobiographical Recollections, chap. iv. (American ed. p. 60 fol.). Ashestiel, or Ashiestiel, the home of Scott from the early part of 1804 until he removed to Abbotsford in May, 1812, is on the south bank of the Tweed, some six miles above the latter place. "A more beautiful situation for the house of a poet could not be conceived. The house was then a small one, but . . its accommodations were amply sufficient. You approached it through an old-fashioned garden, with holly hedges and broad, green terrace walks. On one side close under the windows is a deep ravine, clothed with venerable trees, down which a mountain rivulet is heard, more than seen, in its progress to the Tweed. The river itself is separated from the high bank on which the house stands only by a narrow meadow of the richest verdure. Opposite, and all around, are the green hills. The valley there is narrow, and the aspect in every direction is that of perfect pastoral repose" (Lockhart). See also an interesting description of the place in Howitt's Homes and Haunts of British Poets (Harpers' ed. vol. ii. p. 207 fol.). 1. November's sky, etc. The metre of this Introduction (as of the entire poem, with occasional variations, mostly such as are found in the old "ballad measure ") is iambic, that is, with the accents on the even syllables, and octosyllabic, or eight syllables to the line. An Alexandrine, or line of twelve syllables, is occasionally introduced at the end of a passage; as in 96, 205, and 283 below. In the poem proper, lines of six syllables are often interspersed, which give additional variety to the measure by interrupting the regular succession of rhymes. 3. The steepy linn. The "deep ravine" mentioned by Lockhart. For the poetical steepy, cf. Shakespeare, T. of A. i. 1. 74: "the steepy mount," etc. Linn, which here is ravine, has a variety of other meanings; as cataract (cf. ii. ind. 269 below), deep pool (especially above or below a waterfall), precipice, etc. = Needpath-fell, Yair (or Yare), and Glenkinnon's rill, are all in the immediate neighborhood. 8. Feeble, hoarse, and frequent are of course used adverbially, as adjectives often are in poetry. 15. No longer, etc. The MS. (according to Lockhart) reads: "No longer now in glowing red The Ettericke-Forest hills are clad." |